Sense and Singularity: The Social Experiences of John Marsh and Thomas Stutterd in Late-Georgian England

Abstract

Changing economic and social circumstances in the last quarter of the eighteenth century brought new discussions regarding the relationship between the individual, the family and the state in the evolving language of political philosophy and in the broader debates that were articulated in the popular press of the day.¹ On one hand, in the half-century after 1750, we find evidence of unprecedented social and economic change, accompanied by the growing political agitation of the emergent middle classes, the dissenting voices of a groundswell of Protestant nonconformists, and the radical press, some of which went so far as to articulate Republican, even feminist ideologies. The term ‘class’ itself, anachronistic in its application to much of the period under discussion in this volume, began to have currency, as an accurate descriptor of the political consciousness and solidarity which emerged at this time between groups of the same status.² Indeed, it is to the Georgian period that some historians have looked in order to trace the roots of modern identity, as a time when certain defining features of modern society, such as burgeoning technology, the rise of mass communication, economic opportunity and education, were made available to a growing number of people.³ An unprecedented degree of social mobility was now possible, in theory, if not in practice.